Traci Zajdel, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
AASECT Certified Sex Therapist
Fear is a question: What are you afraid of and why?
Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them.
-Marilyn Ferguson
Discovering the Leader Within:
My Emotional Journey
Hello and welcome!
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I want to start by saying that titles are a challenge for me. I tend to title my projects closer to their completion rather than at the beginning because often the experience of completing and putting together the pieces helps me to reflect on the language that best defines the work itself. At first I considered the path to leadership as a "journey"; however, that has not resonated through the process as it suggests that leadership is destination to reach.
What I have found is that leadership has existed within my experience all along. Through reflection and engagement with my experience in different ways, I was able to examine and challenge my deepest, and sometimes darkest, moments. This gave me the clarity to discover and recognize leadership's presence and welcome it in. ​
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Emotions have been the aspect of journey involved in this process. My discovery process has led me to visit many difficult emotions, to sit with them, question why they showed up for me and continue to show up even in times that I wish they would not. Love, fear, anxiety, defeat, discouragement, abandonment, inadequacy - the list goes on and on, but each has carried its own message and has been a gauge through which I could check in with my leadership self and build the strength I need to carry it into the future.
My son calls this a "wise mystical tree." It is located in Colonial Park Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. I agree that this tree is surrounded by wise and mystical energy. Symbols like this one can rejuvenate the search for wisdom in the process of demystifying the self.